Teacher Technology Integration Interviews

	Teacher 1 6th Grade	Teacher 2 5th Grade	Teacher 3 2nd Grade	Teacher 4 4th Grade	Teacher 5 3rd Grade
Do you see evidence of the technology integration in practice?	I did not directly observe her use any technology in the lesson. In her room she has a desktop computer that is hooked to a ceiling mounted projector, but she informed me that the projector hasn’t worked since September.	I did not observe technology being used in this specific lesson. There is technology present in this classroom, but it seems as though it is not often used.	I saw some technology integration present in this lesson. The teacher used the desktop computer and document camera throughout the lesson.	There is a ton of technology integrated into this classroom. There are student iPads being used. There is a desktop computer hooked up to a projector. The teacher uses technology constantly and seamlessly. Technology is definitely not an afterthought in this room.	There is a lot of technology integration happening in this classroom. The teacher always has her iPad in her hand (used for behavior monitoring, projecting with Apple TV, and controlling background music.)
Was the Instructional Technologist involved in the classroom lesson planning?	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist. We do have a Technology Director, but she is not a certified teacher. She deals more with our hardware and software and not with actual implementation and instruction. She directs a technology team of teachers to help with instruction and implementation. I am part of that team.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist. We do have a Technology Director, but she is not a certified teacher. She deals more with our hardware and software and not with actual implementation and instruction. She directs a technology team of teachers to help with instruction and implementation. I am part of that team.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist. We do have a Technology Director, but she is not a certified teacher. She deals more with our hardware and software and not with actual implementation and instruction. She directs a technology team of teachers to help with instruction and implementation. I am part of that team.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist. We do have a Technology Director, but she is not a certified teacher. She deals more with our hardware and software and not with actual implementation and instruction. She directs a technology team of teachers to help with instruction and implementation. I am part of that team.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist. We do have a Technology Director, but she is not a certified teacher. She deals more with our hardware and software and not with actual implementation and instruction. She directs a technology team of teachers to help with instruction and implementation. I am part of that team.
Did the classroom teacher rely on the Instructional Technologist to pre-teach the students on the “how to” of technology in a different setting?	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so I asked the teachers if they themselves taught the technology out of context before they used the technology with content. She said that she would pre-teach technology before she introduced it with content. However, this year she hasn’t had time or resources to integrate much technology at all.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so I asked the teachers if they themselves taught the technology out of context before they used the technology with content. This teacher said that when she introduces a new technology, like classroom iPads, she spends time introducing the hardware without the content and laying out clear rules and expectations.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so I asked the teachers if they themselves taught the technology out of context before they used the technology with content. She explained that heir class uses technology no matter what the setting.  Whether that involves going to the tech lab or using the I-Pads. She goes over the steps involved before jumping into the content. Her students are lower elementary, so it would make sense that she would need to be more direct and specific when introducing new technologies.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so I asked the teachers if they themselves taught the technology out of context before they used the technology with content. This teacher said that they would teach “how-to” technology most of the time, depending on the subject matter than was being taught.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so I asked the teachers if they themselves taught the technology out of context before they used the technology with content. She thinks it depends entirely on the technology and how much exposure the students have had to it. She explained that many students now come into school already knowing how to operate lots of the school technologies, such as iPads.
Did the classroom teacher take the students to a computer lab? Or was the technology presented in the classroom?	Most of her technology (which is minimal) is presented in the classroom. The students do go to the computer lab in other subject classes and in technology specials once a week.	She never takes her students to the computer lab. They do have computer specials once a week though. But there is a separate technology teacher for that instruction time.	She doesn’t usually take her students into the lab unless it correlates to something they are studying in class.  For example, they used the lab to give the kids a jump-start on an insect research project.	He takes his students to the computer lab a few isolated times. Mostly he presents technology in the classroom.	All of the technology integration happens in the mainstream classroom. The students go to the lab once a week for computer specials and they work on projects that correlate with what the students are learning in their homeroom class.
How is technology integrated into classroom instruction?	This is a history teacher and one way she integrates technology into her room is by she showing history videos or you tube videos about once a week to help give the visual for whatever unit they happen to be currently studying.   She has a projector in her classroom, but it has not been properly functioning since September.	She integrates technology into her room using the desktop computer and projector mostly.  She plays videos and Powerpoints for the students.	She occasionally takes students to the lab to do things like research. She also said they "travel" around the world by looking at famous pictures of different places we are studying, like Ancient Greece. She also uses student iPads for games in both language arts and math.	Technology is used in this classroom in centers. Students type papers on iPads. The teacher uses it for behavior management. This teacher also uses Flipped Classrooms for math. So he records his lessons and the students watch it online for homework the night before. This is a very cool idea that I want to do more research about myself.	She uses the document camera and projector continuously. She also projects from her iPad with Apple TV and plays background music as well. The students use the three class iPads for practice and games in math. There is a classroom management app on the iPads that this teacher and several teachers in the school are using as well.
What management techniques were in place to handle technology in the classroom?	This teacher monitors constantly and instructions are always visible when completing any activity in her class.  The students do know consequences will occur for inappropriate use.	She lays out firm expectations before the technology is introduced. She reinforces these expectations continuously while students have the technology.	Students and teacher go over procedures and they model how to take care of technology when it is used. There are specific times students know when to use the iPads and when not to. Much of the time, the iPads are used in rotations so students are given an allotted time to use the available technology.  This helps with that management piece within her classroom as well.	He sets the parental controls on all the student iPads and he monitors students to make sure they stay on task.	She said that she frontloaded the students with rules and procedures regarding the technology, iPads especially. She has the parental settings locked and watches students closely when they have the iPads. If there is any breaking of rules at all technology privileges are immediately pulled. No warnings. This seems harsh, but I agree with her.
Were the technology resources provided by the school district integrated into classroom instruction?	Some malfunctioning technology provided by the school was not being used, but other technologies were being utilized. All grade appropriate software programs were being used. No additional technologies had been brought into the classroom.	The technology hardware provided by the school was being used. However, there are many software, database, and application technologies that were not being utilized. This is probably from a lack of awareness on the teacher’s part that the technologies were even available.	The school technology was being used to the extent of my knowledge, and the teacher stated that she uses the software provided as well.	All available school technology was being used in this class. I saw most all of it in the one lesson that I observed. This teacher also brought in some personal technologies to supplement the school provided ones as well.	Many of the available technologies provided by the school were being used in this classroom. The teacher said it depended what they were working on as to how much technology was used at any given time.
Was a Co-Plan/Co-Teach model used?	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so we rarely have the opportunity to co-plan/ co-teach with other educators.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so we rarely have the opportunity to co-plan/ co-teach with other educators.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so we rarely have the opportunity to co-plan/ co-teach with other educators.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so we rarely have the opportunity to co-plan/ co-teach with other educators.	Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist on staff to assist in the classrooms, so we rarely have the opportunity to co-plan/ co-teach with other educators.
Does the teacher conscientiously integrate technology when planning instruction?	She says she does conscientiously include technology when planning her lessons. This does not really coincide with what I have observed. Much of her technology lay unused or is malfunctioning. So I really didn’t see much evidence of technology integration in her initial lesson planning.	This teacher said she sometimes thinks specifically about technology to include in lessons. But sometimes technology gets pushed to the “back burner” so to speak. It also depends on what they are studying and how easily the technology fits into the content area.	She does specifically integrate technology particularly in science and social studies. She said that she uses inquiry and when her students wonder about something she will take a few moments to look the topic up with her class and display what she finds on the projector.	He says that he is always trying to figure out new ways to integrate technology into his instruction. I definitely saw evidence of this in his classroom and in the way the students reacted to the technology. They seemed very familiar with it.	This teacher does a good job of including technology in her teaching, but she says she doesn’t always do it intentionally. Oftentimes she plans to use it, but other times while she is teaching she might through some new technology into a lesson.
How much time was spent on teaching students to use the hardware technology? (How to use a mouse, to type, etc.)	She spends very little time on teaching the students how to use technology hardware. She said by this point they either know it or they don’t. It seems like they don’t use much technology to begin with though.	This teacher said that she doesn’t have much time to spend on this instruction. But she thinks the students still really need it. They do get more of this instruction in technology computer specials once a week.	For spending a lot of time instructing on the software like this teacher does, she does not spend much time on hardware. They usually come to her already knowing the basics of most technology hardware.	Not very much time is spent instructing this teacher’s students on how to use the technology itself. His thinks at this point students know how to use most devices even better than the teachers.	At the beginning of the year quite a bit of time was spent on classroom rules and procedures, and this teacher explains that hardware is part of that instruction. She teaches them how to use it at the beginning of the year and then comes back to it as the year progresses.

            When I was doing observations in different classrooms at my school I saw varying levels of technology integration. Some teachers were barely using any technology, and some teachers had multiple technology devices incorporated in one lesson. It is interesting to see different teacher’s comfort levels in regards to technology. There was also a wide range of how much background technology instruction they gave pre-teaching technology elements and hardware. Some teachers that use more technology daily typically pre-taught more than teachers that use less technology. Our school does not have an Instructional Technologist who is a certified teacher. Our Technology Director comes from a business technology background, and she is very knowledgeable about our technology resources, but not about the instructional practices around the technology. I hope to be able to somewhat bridge this gap for our school by getting my Masters Degree in Instructional Technology and working closely with our Technology Director. Most of the elementary teachers in our school do not regularly use the computer lab for their instruction. We rely on the technology computer teacher that our kids see in specials to do that. Some of the middle school classes use the computer lab weekly however. But our school does have many wonderful technology resources available in the classroom, if the teachers choose to use them. All the teachers in our school that I spoke with use strong parental controls on the technology in the kids’ hands. They were also all good about circulating around the room and monitoring students when they were using the technology. Also, all the teachers say they try to conscientiously put technology into their instruction, but it doesn’t always happen.